Metropole is the first album in 8 years from the Chicago bred trio. It’s a blistery, hook-heavy sound with a lyrical narrative that captures what vocalist/bassist Brendan Kellys calls “that alone-in-a-crowd, stranger-in-a-strange-land kind of shit—a feeling of such weird solitude that you don’t even know what’s up and what’s down”. Brendan Kelly, Chris McCaughan (vocals/guitar), and Neil Hennessey (drums) took their wide range of influences and inspirations from both classic punk/hardcore bands including Jawbreaker, NOFX, Propaghandi, Bad Religion and late-’90s hip hop like Outkast’s Aquemini to create their most dynamic record to date. The samples heard throughout the album are sound recordings of street musicians, recorded by the band on their cell phones. Take the horn at the start of “Acheron River” that Kelly describes as “a dude on his back on the middle of the road, so drunk he couldn’t even see.” Or the piano at the end of “Seventeener (17th and 37th) that was a grand piano someone was playing in the middle of the street. Everything from accordion to bagpipes helps capture the urban isolation that saturates so much of Metropole.

To that end, both McCaughan and Kelly—who asserts that the Lawrence Arms have “never had any agenda apart from just having fun and making good music”—state that the multi-year break between albums ultimately went a long way in refining the band’s vision and sound. “Because of the way we exist as a band, it was important for us to wait until we knew we had something to say that was sharp and pointed and dynamic and incisive,” says Kelly. “And if we didn’t have that, then we’d just rather not make a record, ‘cause fuck it.”

Fans are invited to pre-order Metropole by visiting: smarturl.it/Metropoledlx. The Lawrence Arms have also announced a string of long-anticipated US headlining dates. Tickets are on-sale now and moving fast.